This instantiates an Image::Flight::Suborbital object and initializes its parameters. The following parameters are recognized. Unrecognized parameters are silently ignored - but should be avoided to prevent conflicts with future versions of the module.

If present, this turns the background to a grandient of colors. The gradient starts at the bottom of the image with the bg_color attribute and blending in 100 steps to the bg_top_gradient_color at the top of the image. The colors make the steepest transition toward the bottom of the image in order to look like the transition from low-altitude sky to space.

This may be any color string recognized by the Graphics::ColorNames module. If omitted, the bg_color is used as a solid background. The default is not to use a gradient.

Image::Flight::Suborbital was written by Ian Kluft for Masten Space Systems ( http://www.masten-space.com/ ) for use in documentation of suborbital flights. Thought the original idea was inspired for use by the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team ( http://www.stratofox.org/ ), in order to draw images for the web site about space launches which Stratofox has participated in.

The module was "inspired" by an adjustment of the estimate of the altitude of the CSXT Space Shot 2004, the first amateur space launch. ( http://www.civilianspace.com/ and http://www.stratofox.org/pics/csxt-spaceshot-2004/ ) Upon inspection of the data from the flight computers, CSXT made an initial altitude estimate of 77 miles (about 123 km or 400,000ft). After further study, the official altitude was adjusted to a more conservative 72 miles (about 113km or 380,000ft). But that was after Stratofox had drawn diagrams manually. It had been a lot of work to draw the diagram and the scales in miles and kilometers. An automated method was preferred before a need came up to draw more. This module was written to solve that problem.

The amateur space launch which made this module necessary took place at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. See Ian Kluft's Black Rock Page ( http://ian.kluft.com/blackrock/ ) for more information about rocketry at the Black Rock Desert.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.6 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.